


The First Snow (of Seventh Heaven)

by holysmotez



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Because I Have You, Cetra mythology, Cloti - Freeform, Cloti Holiday Cheer 2020, Cloti Zine, F/M, Fluff, Headcanon, Kissing, prompt, reason for the season
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:53:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28158603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holysmotez/pseuds/holysmotez
Summary: Miracles can happen.
Relationships: Tifa Lockhart/Cloud Strife
Comments: 6
Kudos: 57





	The First Snow (of Seventh Heaven)

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is based on a prompt from the incredibly warm, talented, and generous souls spearheading the [Because I Have You](https://twitter.com/theclotizine) Cloti Zine Project. Of which I am also among the contributing authors! So please check it out!
> 
> The holiday prompt in question was this: how Cloti would spend the holiday at Seventh Heaven? And it got me thinking about what might be the origins of said holiday? And why would it be important for the Cloti family to celebrate? I hope you will enjoy what I've woven together...

Seventh Heaven’s door rattles, and it’s for the third time that afternoon.

_Closed in observance of Northern Holiday_

The sign Tifa placed outside the door the night before turns away another disappointed patron. She wrestles with a flash of guilt. 

In fairness, she had been _very_ proactive in the weeks beforehand. She let all her regular customers know the bar would be closed all day today. Few, it seemed, had chosen to believe her.

 _Nobody celebrates that stupid Holiday anymore_ , the looser tongues had said, made even looser with beverage. _You wouldn’t_ really _turn away good business over some kid’s fairytale, would you?_

And they had continued making these remarks, even after Cloud and Marlene had made it their joint mission to decorate the entire bar with traditional candles and garland. They had done a predictably thorough job lining everything that wasn’t a dining surface.

Even now, she catches sight of Cloud and Marlene over by the fireplace. She watches him as he hoists the girl up under her shoulders, and her guilty feeling melts like snow in the Corel desert. _Today is far more important to have as just a family_ , she thinks, leaning into the admiration she felt for Cloud’s endless patience. With Marlene in particular, as the not-so-little girl focuses on getting the evergreen garland arranged _just right_ around the empty materia stand. A traditional piece, and for good reason.

The evergreen was already arranged well enough, but both Cloud and Tifa knew she just wanted the excuse to touch and smell the stuff again. The day he had burst through the door with a festooned wreath from Icicle Inn under his arm, Marlene was so enchanted by the novelty of it that he asked if it’d be alright to ride out again the next morning to fetch more.

Tifa told him he could, so long as he also promised to bring back some of their specialty cocoa-- and that he needed a kiss for making Marlene smile so much. _Deal_ , he had deadpanned, but she felt the wry smile against her lips.

The door knob rattles again. This time, when she thinks about the sign outside, she hopes it might also serve as a subtle way to spread the Holiday cheer to the rest of the neighborhood. 

But before she can consider the world outside, however, she has to contend with spreading the cheer within her own home. In contrast to Cloud and Marlene’s enthusiasm, Denzel had taken the opposite turn in the weeks before. Perhaps in error, Tifa had hoped by giving him space that his disinterest might thaw, especially after observing Cloud bonding with Marlene over ornament placement.

Instead, this morning Denzel remained in his room, and had politely refused when Tifa offered for him to help mix ingredients for the Holiday log. He only emerged from his room for lunch, and even the warm aroma of baked butter and sugar that lingered in the air did little to invigorate his spirit. Now, he slumps with his elbow propped on the bar counter, idly picking at the remains of his plate. 

Meanwhile, Tifa whisks together components for chocolate icing. The log is almost done cooling in the refrigerator, and her patience with his attitude was about to wear out. She asks him, “Well, Denzel? Want to help me put icing on the Holiday log? It’ll be easy, and I’ll let you have first dibs on the leftovers.”

“No, thanks,” he snaps, on the verge of disrespect. 

Tifa stops whisking. She puts the tool down as gently as possible, and takes a deep breath before she goes over to his side of the bar. _Something’s the matter_ , she tells herself, and she planned on getting to the bottom of it. Right now.

She leans forward, propping herself up with her elbows.

“What’s on your mind, Denzel?” she asks. Not for the first time, it strikes her how easily her bartending skills convert into parenting skills as she catches his eye, curtained behind his bangs.

“Why are we even doing all of this?” he says, huffing. 

“Cloud and I thought it’d be a wonderful tradition for us to bring into our home,” Tifa tells him. 

“Everybody else thinks it’s stupid.”

“Your sister doesn’t,” Tifa says, gesturing behind him. “Cloud doesn’t,” she adds, cocking her head.

Denzel’s lip twitches at that. Nonetheless, he forges ahead with his complaint. “So? I still don’t get it, and I feel like an idiot for not being able to explain it to my friends at school.” 

Tifa reels back, blinking. “Really? You hadn’t mentioned that to us before.”

“Why would I? It wouldn’t have stopped you.”

“I suppose that might be true, but we would be happy to tell you why. All you have to do is ask.”

“Okay, so why?” Denzel snaps.

Tifa takes another deep, calming breath. She says, “The story behind it is something we wanted to do our part to help preserve.” She swallows before saying, “And for a long time, I never knew why, either. Our parents would make festive dinners growing up, but that’s the most any of our households did.”

“Doubt anyone from home really knew why, either,” Cloud calls, having deposited Marlene back down on the floor. While he turns back around, she races to her own perch at the bar, where a snack and a glass of milk is already waiting for her. 

He continues, “Our parents would make festive dinners growing up, but that’s the most any of our households did. Probably was just something their parents did, and theirs before them. I don’t think either one of us had really thought much about it until Nanaki asked us if we were celebrating.”

Tifa huffs, grimly amused at the memory. “I think his good eye rolled into the next town when we said some of the same things. That the Holiday was kind of silly, and why go through the trouble?”

Cloud pulls out a stool next to Denzel, and the boy’s eyes pop open wide at the sudden proximity of his personal hero. Without missing a beat, Cloud slides into his seat and says, “Apparently we didn’t have a Nanaki to set us straight when we were growing up. Besides, nobody I knew back then had any Shiva materia anyway. Shinra probably would have confiscated it.”

“Shiva?” Denzel asks, his eyes gaining a glimmer of wonder Tifa had been searching for. Leave it to Cloud and his way with kids.

Cloud sighs. “Doubt I couldn’t tell it as well as Nanaki, but it goes that Shiva once saved the Planet from a calamity that fell from the sky, back during the time of the Cetra.” His eyes drop, and his jaw sets before he speaks again: “I won’t even say its name. Not in this house, and not on this day. But the wound it left on the Planet threatened to end all life.”

Tifa says, “And as the story goes, the Cetra were baffled at how to combat the alien corruption. Not even the great Titan’s earth-shaping, nor Ifrit’s hellfire, could overcome its virulent evil.”

“Shiva, however, wasn’t called upon then. After seeing the other legendary creatures fail, the Cetra gave up that strategy. Instead, they called on the last ultimate power they had at their disposal: Holy magic,” Cloud says.

Tifa nods, picking up the thread once more. “So the Cetra prayed. Versions are mixed as to whether it happened right away, or if at first it seemed as if nothing happened and their prayers were futile. But when the Holy materia finally began to glow, so too did their Shiva materia.”

The feet of a bar stool scrapes along the floor. Marlene had since climbed out of her stool and clamored into one next to Cloud, her half glass of milk and partially-devoured snack left abandoned in her wake. Cloud opens his arms to her, inviting her to take a seat on his thigh instead, which she happily squirms into. 

“And then what happened?” Denzel asks Tifa.

Marlene stares at her the entire time she settles into Cloud’s lap, and she wants to smile at how enthrall the kids are, all the while fighting down a creeping blush with how Cloud seems enraptured by her storytelling as well. She clears her throat, keeping herself in proper respect for the rest of the tale.

She says: “Then Shiva burst forth, empowered by their fervent prayers. And then she…”

Her stomach flips, and her next words freeze in her throat. She blinks, suddenly unable to see clearly in the brightly-lit bar. She remembers to breath when she feels a pressure on her hand resting on the bar counter. Cloud’s hand, silently offering his strength, because he of all people gets why this was so hard. And so important to tell.

The kids, meanwhile, seem to grasp the seriousness of the moment, or they’re simply trapped in suspense. Either way, it gives Tifa the moment she needs to summon her willpower to power through. “And then she drew on the Lifestream itself. It came out from the earth, and converged on her at the center of the great wound where the alien infection lay burrowed.”

“Like the flower girl!” Marlene gasped.

Tifa nods, her eyes burning as she goes on with the story. “But nothing, no matter how deep it crawled, could escape Shiva’s Diamond Dust in that moment. Lifestream itself was frozen solid, trapping the alien evil and staunching the wound, thus saving the Planet and all life on it from certain doom.”

Cloud says, “And converted most of the Northern continent into a perpetually frozen wasteland.”

“A price that had to be paid, according to Nanaki,” Tifa says. “But even so, the surviving Cetra celebrated that miracle, and every year through the centuries. Humans eventually inherited the tradition as well, and every region has its own take on it. But Icicle Inn village is said to be the most authentic in how the Cetra celebrated. Besides, I’ve always wanted to try out some Icicle Inn dishes.”

As she finishes, her eyebrows shoot up. “Speaking of which,” she says, glancing over to the fridge.

“Can I still help you with the icing?” Denzel asks.

Tifa fights down her smile, wanting to mess with him a little. She does her best put-upon deadpan, and glances down to his lunch plate. She says, “Maybe if you wash your dishes.”

“And if you tell Tifa ‘thank you’,” Cloud tells him. His firm voice gave no quarter.

“Cloud,” she starts. “He doesn’t-”

“Thank you, Tifa!” Denzel blurts, and he launches from his seat in a flash with his dishes in tow. As he makes for the sink in a hurry, Tifa can’t help but chuckle.

“Me, too!” Marlene says.

Cloud holds her fast, and with a glimmer of mischief in his eye, he says, “Wait a minute. Something’s still missing from the fireplace, isn’t there?”

Marlene whips about, scanning her meticulous work for any imperfection. But eventually, her sight lands on the empty materia stand. 

“Shiva?” she asks.

And in another Holiday miracle, Cloud’s lip cracks into a smile. And from his pocket, he produces the missing globe of materia, its deep ruby red enchanting to the eye. “I’ll let you do the honors,” he tells her, sending her eyebrows into the stratosphere as he hands her the materia before suddenly hoisting her up from his lap. Her giggles fill up the bar as he carts her over to the fireplace once more.

Tifa says, “And who knows? Maybe it’ll snow.”

At the sink, Denzel scoffs while he runs a dishrag over his rinsed plate. “It never snows around here.”

Still, Tifa watches as Marlene - with Cloud’s assistance - sets the materia on its stand. 

When they step back, she could have sworn she saw it flicker with a white light at its core.

Cloud must have seen it, too, because he whips around to meet her curious stare with his own. When Marlene gasps, Denzel sets down his plate with a clatter, and spins around to look. And as he does, the flicker becomes a flash. Then, a soft glow.

“What’s happening?” Marlene asks.

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen that before,” Tifa admits. Cloud, in turn, shrugs.

Their attention turns to the outside, when shouts, hollers, and laughter booms outside Seventh Heaven’s closed door. Ever in perpetual guard dog mode, Cloud bolts for the door and unlocks the latch before anyone else can move. But the second he sticks his head outside, the tension bleeds from him immediately, and Tifa wonders if she imagined it when he sees him shiver.

He pulls his head back inside. “You’re not going to believe this, Tifa.”

He rips the door wide open. Before she’s out from behind the bar, Tifa can see them. Snowflakes. Big fat ones, twirling and swirling through the chilly air, which she is positive had been far warmer when she put the sign out that morning.

While she stands there gobsmacked, Marlene shrieks with delight. She dashes out the door before Cloud can get a hand on her, while Denzel stands frozen behind him as he gawks at the snow. _Their first snow_ , Tifa realizes. 

“Go ahead,” Cloud says to the boy, knowing which battles to fight, and steps aside. Before long, Denzel grins, and dashes outside to join in playing with his sister. 

Tifa steps up beside Cloud. His arm slips around her waist, his warmth quite welcome as the snow grows thicker on the ground, sticking despite the warm ground. Some of their neighbors are also in their doorways or about in the streets, each one marveling at the phenomenon.

“Do the miracles ever cease?” Tifa jokes, turning her head to catch Cloud’s eyes. 

He simply radiates warmth, from the press of his body up to the way he looks at her now. He says, “The biggest one has to be us, here and now.”

She snorts, but realizes he’s probably only half-kidding, if that. She leans to kiss the corner of his mouth and says, “Then let’s be thankful.”

Laughter and shouts of amazement continue to fill the streets of Edge as Cloud pivots to face her. He still holds her close, with his hand pressed to her back. He says, “Happy Holiday, Tifa.”

“Happy Holiday, Cloud,” she says. 

His lips meet hers, and her heart soars. Soars like it always does with him, as high as snow clouds on this special Holiday. She can’t wait to do this again next year, and for all their years ahead. 

And while the orb on the mantle may twinkle brightly today, the memory of hope will stay with them always.

**Author's Note:**

> In my fic, they have a fireplace. The end. 
> 
> Thanks for reading, and I hope you all have a wonderful and SAFE rest of the year! Cheers!


End file.
